The Royal Society of Edinburgh Women and the Stars Professor
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The Royal Society of Edinburgh Women and the Stars Professor Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell PRSE; Professor Monica Grady; Dr Claire Brock; and Dr Mhairi Stewart Saturday 13 June 2015, Berwickshire High School, Duns Report by Kate Kennedy Great Discoveries Quietly Made Dr Mhairi Stewart, University of St Andrews This talk told the stories of some of the renowned Scottish female scientists, the discoveries they made and the difficulties they faced; showing how they changed the world and how the world has changed for women in science. The century from 1850 to 1950, coinciding with the rise of the Women’s Rights movements, was a period of dramatic societal change for women in Scotland. By 1889, the introduction of the Universities Act Scotland meant women could graduate from Scottish universities on an equal footing to men. Indeed, the first female graduates received their degrees in 1893, only a year after being admitted to university. Many women had already completed their studies, but had only legally been allowed to graduate at this point. It is historically reported that the first women to graduate in Medicine, from the University of Glasgow, was Marion Gilchrist in 1894. However, this honour actually belongs to ‘James’ Barry, born Margaret Bulkley, a niece of the famous artist James Barry. Dr Barry lived her entire life as a man, in order to study and practice medicine worldwide, and her true gender was not revealed until 150 years after her death. She was the first army surgeon to perform a successful Caesarean section, defined as one where both mother and child survived. Whilst there are many excellent examples and stories relating to Scottish women in science, for this talk, Dr Stewart focused on six women involved in science during these changing times. Williamina Fleming, a Scottish astronomer born in Dundee in 1857, is especially noted for her discovery of the Horsehead Nebula, a huge interstellar dust cloud in the constellation of Orion. Fleming left school aged fourteen, subsequently becoming a pupil teacher. Deserted by her accountant husband in the United States, she became a maid in the household of Professor Edward Pickering. Pickering famously declared that his maid could do a better job than his male assistants at Harvard Observatory and hired her as a clerical assistant. During this employment, Fleming devised and implemented a system of cataloguing stars according to how much hydrogen could be observed in their spectra. During her lifetime she catalogued over 10,000 stars and discovered the Horsehead Nebula and hundreds of other stars. Bessie Bowhill and Elizabeth Bertram were nurses from the Scottish Borders. Bessie trained as a nurse at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and in 1900 enlisted in the Boer War, whereupon she was stationed in South Africa, returning to Scotland following the War. At the outbreak of World War One, Bessie and Elizabeth volunteered to work with Dr Elsie Inglis’ Scottish Women’s Hospital (SWH) and were posted to Serbia. Inglis, a doctor and suffragist, had founded the SWH through her own funds and those of the Women’s Suffrage Movement, and was intent on changing women’s place in society by providing female-staffed relief hospitals for the Allied war effort; showing that women could do such jobs. On approaching 1 the Royal Army Medical Corps with her offer, Inglis was told to “go home and sit still”. Needless to say, she did not take this advice. Indeed, the French, Belgian and Serbian governments accepted her offer and she established several units, including one in Serbia. During their time in Serbia, Inglis, Bowhill and Bertram were faced with a raging Typhus epidemic that killed thousands, and advancing forces necessitated regularly moving their entire field hospital and extremely harsh living conditions. Their work and ordeals during the First World War doubtless inspired subsequent generations of women and, indeed, was reported locally in the Borders, in their own words, upon their return. Isabella Gordon, born in Keith in 1901, studied marine biology at Aberdeen University, and later became an expert specialising in crabs and sea spiders. Whilst she was working at Yale University, William Calman, Keeper of Zoology at London’s Natural History Museum, offered her a position of Assistant Keeper with responsibility for Crustacea. Thus, Isabella Gordon returned to the UK and became the first female permanent member of staff at the Museum. During her time at the Museum, Gordon published and reviewed many articles and books. In 1961, she was invited to Japan to meet Emperor Hirohito, himself a keen marine biologist, on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday. Gordon was known to have a good sense of humour and was a fan of limericks. In 1958, she published a review entitled A thermophilous shrimp from Tunisia, inspiring a colleague to send her a limerick; A thermophilous shrimp from Tunisia Said: when it gets cold I get busier I dig a hole And fill it with coal And there’s nowhere as warm as it is ‘ere To which she replied; The idea’s ok but Aplysia Is the rhyme I should choose for Tunysia A purist and Scot I simply could not Pronounce it to rhyme with ‘it is ‘ier-r-r!! Dr Marion Gray of Ayr (1902–1979) was a Scottish mathematician known for discovering a graph commonly known as the Gray Graph. The Gray Graph is the smallest possible semi- symmetrical graph achievable with 54 vertices and three edges existing in each vertex. Gray considered this to be a theoretical discovery without practical application and did not publish her findings. However, over three decades later, the Gray Graph has since become crucial to graph theory and network development. Dorothy Buchanan (1899–1985) hailed from Langholm in Dumfriesshire and became the first female member of the Institute of Civil Engineers, successfully passing the examination in 1927. Indeed, on entering the exam room, Buchanan was dismayed to find another women there, only to be relieved to establish that this was her chaperone rather than a contender for the position of ‘first female’! Buchanan worked as part of the design team for the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Tyne Bridge in Newcastle and London’s Lambeth Bridge, before marrying and retiring from engineering. Dr Stewart concluded that, in considering these stories of inspirational Scottish women scientists, it is evident that times have changed dramatically, and in some ways these women certainly paved the way and created a legacy for future generations. However, the story isn’t over; society still has a long way to go, as many talented females continue to leave academia and industry. 2 Mary Somerville’s Celestial Mechanics; or How to Reach the Stars Dr Claire Brock, University of Leicester Mary Somerville (1780–1872) is a complex figure in the history of science. This talk assessed how she attained the position she did, through an exploration of her ambitious childhood programme of study, and how reaching for the stars brought Mary Somerville a unique position in British society. During an 1882 Royal Institution Christmas Lecture, John Tyndall, employing an optical phenomenon commonly known to the Victorians as Pepper’s Ghost, conjured up the image of Mary Somerville between the busts of two indisputable greats of natural philosophy, Isaac Newton and Francis Bacon. Dr Brock commented that Tyndall’s choice of projection was provocative. “Firstly, Mary Somerville was a woman. By placing a female, however ghostly, between Newton and Bacon, Tyndall would have done enough to raise the hackles of many who believed women had no place in a line of stellar intellects. Secondly, without any formal education or significant scientific achievement to her name, how could Somerville be considered worthy enough to form a line with two of the outstanding contributors to mankind’s understanding of the world”? Somerville has been described in many ways; as a female populariser of science; a difficult to categorise author; and a brilliant surveyor, interpreter and high-level communicator of contemporary science. Unusually, Somerville voiced her perceptions of her own place in the scientific community in her Memoirs, concluding that her substance was questionable. “In the climax of my great success, the approbation of some of the first scientific men of the age and of the public in general I was highly gratified, but much less elated than might have been expected, for although I had recorded in a clear point of view some of the most refined and difficult analytical processes and astronomical discoveries, I was conscious that I had never made a discovery myself, that I had no originality. I have perseverance and intelligence but no genius. That spark from heaven is not granted to the sex, we are of the earth, earthy, whether higher powers may be allotted to us in another state of existence, God knows, original genius in science at least is hopeless in this”. Dr Brock described Somerville as “caught between two worlds”. Whilst her work was popular in the mid 19th Century, her writing was too difficult for the general reader and too close to synthesis for the scientific community. The philosopher John Stuart Mill explained Somerville’s despondency, considering that women lacked originality precisely because they had never been educated sufficiently enough to think “great and luminous new ideas”. Somerville was born in Jedburgh in 1780. She received little in the way of useful academic education at school and enjoyed the great outdoors, attending parties and keeping up with the latest fashions. However, she also developed an interest in mathematics, often entering problem-solving competitions found in the magazines of the day. Thirsty for more knowledge, Somerville also immersed herself in her father’s books on navigation and read Euclid, which she worked her way through painstakingly with “courage and assiduity”.